Returning to the Nest/Help: Geyser Gliding
Short General Introduction
Returning to the Nest is a platform heavy quest similiar to the likes of Secret of the Leviathan's The Labyrinth quest except instead of relying on one platforming section, it relies on four minigame-esque sections and a 5th section requiring most the steps you learned to get to the end. This quest will go on to be infamous for being quite hard because of the platform heavy aspect which the controls were never built for it in the first place, the controls are rather heavy and a bit sensitive, it's also tank-ish, that is, while player can walk and turn without having to stop, unless it's on mobile, due to the never-changing speed, players will often have to stop and turn to avoid falling off a cliff - the turning problem unfortunately transitions into the Flight Suit controls and while it isn't the best, it can be trained.
Geyser Gliding - Introduction
The first section of the Hobgobbler Nest is a geyser-filled cavern with lava at the bottom, filled with crystaline structure and tall coral structures. Because it's a long course to get through, the top of the coral structures serve as in-game checkpoints, though beware! If you exit the game, the game will put you back to the beginning as those checkpoints only work in-game and don't permanently save your progress. The objective of the section is to use the geysers and glide with the Flight Suit to the end similiar to the Hobgobbler gliding in the geyser at the beginning of the cavern entrance.
Due to the complexity of the location and the controls not being built for platforming, this is one out of two hardest parts of the quest according to most of the players, but if one masters the mechanism of Flight Suit gliding, the section becomes so much easier, it is possible to glide all the way to the end without landing a single time.
Learning to glide with the Flight Suit
Gliding with the Flight Suit is similiar to gliding with your Dragon with a few differences:
- A: Turn Left
- D: Turn Right
- S: Dive
- W: Brake
- E: Activate Flight Suit
If the player has the Flight Suit equipped, it's possible to jump from any high point in any Flight Suit allowed location and press E, an important factor of gliding with a Flight Suit is the momentum: what determines the speed of the gliding is if the players did a running start or if in the middle of the gliding, the player dived to gain speed - this is important for the section because you gain much more height from the geysers if you dive into them at a certain amount of speed. For example, if the player has a running start at the beginning of the cave and activates the Flight Suit, should the player dive into the geyser, the geyser will boost the player to a much higher altitude capable of allowing the player to glide and skip a lot of the coral platforming section. Diving, however, has its own disavantage of lowering the altitude for the price of gaining more speed.
Gaining more speed when gliding also allows the player to "brake-drift" in the air, the "brake-drift" is similiar to pressing Spacebar and Shift at once when flying with a dragon, this allows the dragon to accelerate and brake at once, causing a slower but still moving flight without accelerating or braking too much. When the player brakes with the Flight Suit, the player won't brake immediately and will instead drift for a little depending on the speed:
- If the player has a big boost of speed, the brake allows to drift for a while with a gradual but slow lose of speed;
- If the player doesn't have a big boost of speed, the brake will have a quicker gradual lose of speed and make the player going into a gradualy but quick "nosedive", drifting only for a short time.
The "brake-drift" is excellent to use when the player is close to a platform, as it drifts the player in a straight line, enough for the player to land on it. However, it's not adviced to brake when the speed is low, as the player will plummet to a quick drop.
It's also adviced to press the Glide button or E at the top of the jump to gain more initial height, should the player immediately press Glide or E the moment they jump, the player won't get as much momentum and initial height as pressing it on the top of a jump.
Guiding through the Geyser Gliding
- Note: This Guide will use a specific path, specifically at the last section, so it's ok if you did it in a different way.
1st Step:
The first section of the Geyser Gliding is rather easy, there's three horizontal geysers and two coral structures, the player has to give a running start, when press glide at the very end of the jump and when gliding, dive into the far right geyser to get boosted up, then after the boost took you all the way up, glide for a bit and then brake - the boost you got should let you land on a coral platform from the right side with a gradual descent. Because the coral structures' platforms form a spiral platform staircase, players need to be cautions when climbing as it's possible to fall off the platform by accident due to the controls; climb the right coral platform to the center then glide to the left one, climb the left coral to the top and then glide back to the very top of the right coral structure, you're now ready for the next step.
2nd Step:
Now things are about to get trickier, along the path, you'll see two paths both with hoards of crystaline horizontal columns covering it, while players can step on them, it's not advised to do so unless the player feels insecure about the altitude of the gliding. If you do wish to not land in any crystaline structure, you must run and glide at the top of the jump and dive to the third geyser counting from the left, this should allow you to glide over the first crystaline tructure and dive into the geyser after it, by diving into this geyser, you must slightly dive between the two top crystaline structures and the bottom two structures and then dive into the last geyser located after them, by diving into it, it should allow you to glide at a high altitude and brake-drift into the very top of the furthest coral structure, though if you feel like you can't reach it, you can take a turn to glide and brake-drift into the smaller coral structure.
3rd Step:
The final stretch is here and there's no checkpoint in between these two last sections, players must go through it without falling once or else back to the coral structure again. This section is the longest section as it requires the player to keep themselves off the lava until they reach to the end, the first part involves a tight curve and the second part involves a daredevil fall while dodging crystaline structures and go through a hoard of geysers before getting to the end. Again, the crystaline structure can be landed on though it's faster if the player chooses not to as the momentum is kept and players don't have to give a running start to regain the momentum lost after landing.
On the first section, you need to run and glide at the top of the jump and gradually dive into the Geyser on the right, then glide to the geyser that's second close to the crystaline structure and make a gradual turn into the first closest geyser to the second crystaline structure, this should allow you to glide and dive into the right geyser aftyer gliding over the second crystaline structure.
On the second part, you can take on a daredevil route by gliding over the entire first hoard of crystaline structures and dive into the second hoard, on the second hoard, go through between the top two structures and the bottom structures, you may need to brake-drift to avoid hitting one of the bottom structures, then just dive a bit and let the glide take you to the hoard of geysers:
- If you wish to go for the safe route, you can just dive into the geysers that are closer to the structures to make sure you keep yourself at a high ground;
- If you wish to take a daredevil route, you should be able to get to the geyser second closest to the end part, you'll need to immedately dive after hitting it as it will take you higher than the cave entrance.
After transpassing this section, you are ready to head over to the next section.